Luis Muñoz Marín

Puerto Rican-born governor of Puerto Rico (1949-1965), journalist, and poet

• Born: February 18, 1898
• Birthplace: San Juan, Puerto Rico
• Died: April 30, 1980
• Place of death: San Juan, Puerto Rico

The first democratically elected governor of Puerto Rico, Muñoz Marín held office from 1949 to 1965. Initially an ardent supporter of Puerto Rican independence, he formed the Popular Democratic Party (PPD) in 1938 and adopted a political platform that advocated accommodation with the United States and enhanced rights for Puerto Ricans.

Early Life

José Luis Alberto Muñoz Marín (MEW-nyohz mah-REEN) was born on February 18, 1898, to Luis Muñoz Rivera and Amalia Marín Castilla in San Juan, Puerto Rico. His father, a prominent politician who advocated political autonomy for Puerto Rico, was the Puerto Rican resident commissioner in the U.S. House of Representatives from 1911 to 1916. Muñoz Rivera was instrumental in the formation of the Jones Act (1917), which enhanced Puerto Rican political autonomy and granted Puerto Ricans U.S. citizenship.

Because of his father’s political activities, Muñoz Marín’s early years were divided among San Juan, New York City, and Washington, D.C. Unlike his father, Muñoz Marín learned English as a child and was comfortable speaking the language. Prompted by his father, he began his university studies at Georgetown University in 1915, but returned to Puerto Rico in 1916 when his father became ill. After his father’s death, he returned to the United States, briefly serving as secretary to his father’s replacement in the House of Representatives. Uninterested in continuing his studies at Georgetown University, he abandoned his academic career and devoted his efforts to writing. He published his first book, Borrones, a collection of short stories, in 1917. Hoping to pursue a career as a freelance journalist, Muñoz Marín contributed articles to The New York Herald Tribune and La democracía, a newspaper established by his father in 1889.

In 1920, Muñoz Marín returned to Puerto Rico and joined the Puerto Rican Socialist Party, led by labor leader Santiago Iglesias. However, Muñoz Marín quickly became disillusioned with Iglesias’s political tactics and returned to the United States to continue his writing career. He published a collection of his father’s writings and wrote numerous newspaper articles and poems.

By 1925, Muñoz Marín’s political commentaries were lambasting Iglesias’s insistence on immediate Puerto Rican independence as detrimental to the well-being of the masses. Notwithstanding his sharp criticism of the American sugar and coffee corporations that dominated the Puerto Rican economy, he adopted a position that advocated a limited association with the United States and a gradual path toward independence.

Life’s Work

By 1932, Muñoz Marín realized that the only way to achieve the political and economic reforms that he advocated was to become a politician. In 1932, he joined Antonio Barceló’s newly formed Liberal Party, which advocated gradual independence. Muñoz Marín was elected to the Puerto Rican senate in the 1932 elections and became the editor of La democracía. An ardent supporter of U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal, Muñoz Marín lobbied for a massive infusion of federal funding, which earned him the support of Puerto Rico’s landless peasants. Following a dispute with Barceló, Muñoz Marín established the Popular Democratic Party (PPD) in 1938. The party’s platform, which advocated political and economic rights for the rural poor, earned the PPD a solid base of support.

The PPD won a slight majority in the senate in the 1940 elections and Muñoz Marín became the president of the Puerto Rican senate. Muñoz Marín had an easy working relationship with Governor Rexford Tugwell, the last non-Puerto Rican governor appointed by a U.S. president. Rather than actively seeking independence, Muñoz Marín, assisted by Tugwell, sought greater political autonomy for Puerto Rico. During the 1940’s, the Puerto Rican Land Authority redistributed tens of thousands of acres of land to the island’s peasants. In the 1944 legislative elections, the PPD won a landslide victory. By 1945, Muñoz Marín began to push actively for industrialization, convinced that it was the best way to improve the standard of living of the Puerto Rican people. Members of the PPD who disagreed with Muñoz Marín’s new agenda subsequently formed the Puerto Rican Independence Party (PIP) in 1946.

After the U.S. Congress granted Puerto Rico the right to elect its own governor in 1947, Muñoz Marín won the 1948 gubernatorial elections and became the first democratically elected governor of Puerto Rico. He was subsequently reelected in 1952, 1956, and 1960. Politically, he supported a constitution in 1952 that made Puerto Rico a freely associated commonwealth with the United States. Socially, Muñoz Marín launched Operation Serenity, legislation geared toward promoting education and appreciation of the arts. Economically, Muñoz Marín supported Operation Bootstrap, which transformed the Puerto Rican economy from an agrarian society based on sugarcane into an industrialized economy based on manufacturing and tourism. The Puerto Rican government enticed U.S. companies to establish industry in Puerto Rico by offering cheap labor, access to U.S. markets without import duties, and profits free of federal taxation.

Significance

Muñoz Marín is the architect of Puerto Rico’s current political and economic relationship with the United States. His political platform, which argued that economic reforms were more important than political independence to Puerto Rico’s future, earned him the enmity of pro-independence and pro-statehood movements. In the early twenty-first century, Muñoz Marín’s PPD remains a powerful political force in Puerto Rico. The international airport in San Juan, the largest in the Caribbean, was renamed in his honor in 1985.

Bibliography

Aitken, Thomas. Poet in the Fortress: The Story of Luis Muñoz Marín. New York: New American Library, 1965. Although dated, this book remains a strong biography of Muñoz Marín’s career.

Aranda, Elizabeth M. Emotional Bridges to Puerto Rico: Migration, Return Migration, and the Struggles of Incorporation. Lanham, Md.: Rowman and Littlefield, 2006. An informative study that contends that, in spite of structural incorporation, many Puerto Ricans do not feel like they fully belong in mainland society.

Ayala, César J., and Rafael Bernabe. Puerto Rico in the American Century: A History since 1898. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2007. A detailed study that will be of great value to students searching for new topics to research on Puerto Rican history.

Maldonaldo, A. W. Luis Muñoz Marín: Puerto Rico’s Democratic Revolution. San Juan: University of Puerto Rico, 2006. An unbiased study supported by historical documents.

Norris, Marianna. Father and Son for Freedom: The Story of Puerto Rico’s Luis Muñoz Rivera and Luis Muñoz Marín. New York: Dodd, Mead, 1968. Excellent overview of the attempts to achieve political autonomy by both father and son.